Dec 01 2008
Skeptical Battlegrounds: Part I – Background
The skeptical movement, in my opinion, serves a vital role in modern society. We are increasingly dependent upon cutting edge science for our quality of life, and even just to run our complex civilization. And yet, while there seems to be broad respect for science – or at least the fruits of science – in the general public, there is also widespread distrust and overwhelming scientific illiteracy.
We are also in the midst of an endless culture war, a struggle between two aspects of human nature. On the one hand are the proponents of mysticism, superstition, pseudoscience, and anti-science. On the other are the defenders of science and reason.
Some of my skeptical colleagues have objected to the military analogy, but we are engaged in a real struggle, and we are fighting over more than bragging rights. The stakes are real: control of resources, support and recognition of government, the running of institutions, access to the media and to the halls of academia and education.
Right now science is institutionalized and enjoys the benefits of public financing and support. But it is under systematic assault by those who either want a piece of the pie, want to subvert the process of science so that the ends can be made to fit the purposes of their ideology, or who simply have an anti-scientific world view. Hiding amidst their ranks are charlatans and con-artists who are simply trying to exploit the whole situation for a fast buck.
It is both interesting and unfortunate that the mainstream scientific community seems mostly disinterested in the broader culture war. I have seen this at my own institution, among my own colleagues – an ivory tower naiveté. They assume on the one hand that anyone pretending to do science is sincere. But they also feel that any ideas that are too whacky or bizarre are beneath them, and addressing them in any way will taint their academic purity.
They therefore conclude that the best way to deal with pseudoscientific nonsense is to simply ignore it. There is some truth to this – most cranks and charlatans are best left to wallow in their own anonymity. Within academia the cold shoulder of indifference is the harshest criticism – it says that your ideas are so worthless they are not even worth the time it would take to refute them.
But what they miss is that the institutions of science and academia are embedded in society. The beliefs, knowledge, and attitudes of that society matter. They determine how much funding is available for research, what gets funded, how science is applied by the government to meet the problems and challenges of society, and how the next generation is educated.
When a belief, claim, idea or product rises out of anonymity and capture the public’s attention, it can no longer be ignored. It needs to be addressed.
That’s where we come in.
The skeptical community is doing the job that the mainstream scientific community should be doing, but largely isn’t. There are, of course, exceptions – many skeptics are scientists and academics. But we are a distinct community.
We have skills and a knowledge base that many scientists don’t have: knowledge of the many ways in which people fool themselves and others, the many forms of pseudoscience and the denial of science, of the specific claims, fallacies, and history of the various prominent pseudosciences, and the tactics employed by those who attack science.
But I also believe that in order to be successful in the long term the skeptical community must have the mainstream scientific community as an ally. In fact, we would do well to merge, at least to a degree. Skepticism is science, and all scientists should be skeptics. The skeptical community can teach the scientific community how to deal with dangerous pseudoscience. And scientists should embrace and support more fully those who seek to popularize their work and their profession.
Over the next few weeks I am going to address some of the specific large battles that skeptics are fighting. Some we are winning, some we are losing, and perhaps there are lessons we can derive from stepping back to survey the battlefield.
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Although I do not typical do this, because the posts in this series will be longer than usual I will be cross-posting them over at skepticblog.org over the next few Mondays.
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33 Responses to “Skeptical Battlegrounds: Part I – Background”
How can we become better Skeptics?
Hopefully we have more success as a group than I seem to have with my credulous, new agey family members (I blame Oprah). I’m looking forward to this series of posts.
Oprah? James Randi did Oprah back in 1980, see it on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0mEYm9UWWs
I can’t find it online, but I believe Carl Sagan did Oprah (or maybe it was Phil
Donahue) back in the day, and had the audience eating out of his hand,
talking up evolution.
We could use a few more skeptics who are charismatic megafauna.
I know, I know, Oprah isn’t all bad – it is just amusing how she rules the lives of her minions. To add to your list she has also had michael shermer on as a skeptic.
But, she also gives much time to the likes of Deepak Chopra, antivaxxers, “The Secret”, and many other woo peddlers.
Although the ultimate blame is on those who accept everything they are hearing without seeking an alternative viewpoint.
I wasn’t defending Oprah. But she exists and is wildly popular, so we have to deal with this reality. What she sees in Chopra and the others is beyond me, but she’s not alone. Hell, Deepak had his own PBS series a while back. And a popular show on NPR today is The People’s Pharmacy. And so on…
It is hard to describe how big a role this plays, but some of why Americans believe in CAM or feel it has a rightful place is just out of a sense of fairness and justice. I think a central front in the fight has to be to explain why CAM does not deserve a fair shake. (mainly because it has been given one in the past and failed) and why fair and balanced does not apply in scientific debates.
No superdave, “fair and balanced” means looking at the facts objectively and applying rigorous logic to them.
“Fair and balanced” does not mean it is ok to lie if you don’t have the facts on your side.
Thank you, Steven.
We go even further: We say it is a war.
It is a war. That is no exaggeration but the plain truth. For many patients it is a fight for their lives. And many, many of them lose it. Lose the fight, lose their live.
This is why we uncover the methods of warfare. Why we are so intense in our efforts.
It is NOT an ivory tower affaire, it is something which really kills people. Kills them just around you, and you cannot help them. And it kills you, and nobody will help you. It is a matter of utmost self-defense.
The most unbearable part: that politicians are on the side of the ciminals. Politics support criminals and suppress the victims. I do not know about the situation in other countries, but for Germany I can say that Germany is a land of the committers.
The politicians make the laws. And the justice system uses and abuses, bends and folds them.
Would you believe that in Germany 6 decades after the war STILL victims are not rehabilitated? The situation is so easy: “Do nothing and let them die. This solves the problems the most comfortable way.”
Yes, Germany is the land of the committers. An arm, a leg, a life is worth merely nothing. In the USA you have high figures about compensation for pain and suffering. In Germany it is peanuts. If you win the law case. But many, many lose it.
Nearly all who become victims of naturopaths, charlatans or even simple scam dealers, are in court denied their rights.
Take one of the most outraging affairs since WW2: the Hamer scene. Hundreds of dead. And if you try to make a complaint against a naturopath or an MD because he is responsible for the death of your wife or husband, the complaint is turned down. If you – on the private way – sue him, you will lose the case.
Did you know that one of Hamer’s pirate gangs even formed a nation-wide “Bundesverband”? Yes, they did. They hold congresses in noble hotels. They even managed to get at least 2 dozen world-famous screen actors into making PR for them.
Just look here:
http://www.transgallaxys.com/~kanzlerzwo/showtopic.php?threadid=2391
(I wrote in English so you can read it.)
I do not know how to include a picture. Here is a screenshot:
http://www.transgallaxys.com/~aktenschrank/gigantic_fraud_exposed/metamedicine_fraud_with_celebs_2_2.jpg
Now the situation is this: One one side we have the ordinary, good-working medical doctor. On the far edge we have criminal gangs who in large scale leave corpses. But even the far edge criminals, like the Hamer scene, are NOT sentenced in court.
Now, if even the far edge criminals are not touched by justice, all the range of crooks and quacks and charlatans BETWEEN the good-working on one side AND the far edge criminals on the end WILL NOT AT ALL AND NEVER be sentenced by the justice system.
And this is why in Germany year for year tens of thousands of patients die – and nobody cares.
It is war.
ama
( http://wehrhafte.medizin.se )
I think the niche you describe, between the public and scientific consensus should be filled by a “scientific press”. I commend scientists who are willing to get down and dirty such as yourself, and say, Ben Goldacre. But I think that the task is not suited to everyone. Ivory Towers are there for a reason.
There needs to be a split between science writing and general reporting. So many problems occur because of false dichotomies. (Do vaccinations cause autism? We talk with a Dr who says no, and Jenny McCarthy who says yes… YOU DECIDE!) The false division also exists in biology (evolution). There is no conflict in science at least over basic matters that get far too much attention because of deniers and pseudo-scientists. But reporters feel that they need to present a “balanced” story, and therefore give creedance (and air time) to quackery.
In the articles to come, I look forward to how the skeptical community can make a tangible difference in each case – the ones we are winning and losing.
I consider myself a skeptic and political activist. I write letters expressing my opinions about funding pseudoscience and the virtues of real science but, what else can I do? I try to support, financially and emotionally, organizations that I feel are good causes. I guess what I’m asking for is a game plan.
For the record, I don’t consider this a war. Steve, I usually agree with you point by point on your entries. Your writing inspires me to consider all things rationally but the analogy is, as your colleagues suggest, unnecessary. I can’t tell who is wearing a crystal under their shirt to cure their headaches, and if I could, I still wouldn’t rip it from their neck.
I just don’t see how it gets better than a case by case basis and I hope you can help me figure this out, Dr. Novella. Help me Obi-wan Novella, you’re my only hope.
Interesting stuff, would make a great keynote address at TAM7. Probably not as entertaining as Tyson’s, but important none-the-less.
Please look at this picture:
http://wehrhafte.medizin.se/amamich9.jpg
Michaela died because of a charlatan. HUNDREDS suffered a similar or identical fate, they died because of him and his followers. All these patients lost their lives.
Many victims did not know what was done to them. They for sure were no followers of Hamer. They had no idea what they naturopath or MD did to them.
And, still, they lost. And their families even cannot file a complaint, they are turned down.
Last week, after 6 1/2 years time, in Luettich in Belgium a law case started in court. It is an exception, and we have no guess how it will develop.
But however it will be, the dead are dead. no one can wake them up again.
The dead are lost. They are dead. And it is war.
“On the one hand are the proponents of mysticism, superstition, pseudoscience, and anti-science. On the other are the defenders of science and reason.”
Yes, it’s all so simple. There are those who agree with you — sensible, educated, intelligent, wise. And then there are the others — stubbornly stupid, ignorant, insane.
Have you ever considered that all extremists divide the world up in a similar way? Religious fanatics see themselves as good and wise, and they see you and your atheist friends as depraved and deluded.
Fanatics love to over-simplify, and over-simplification results in distortion and confusion.
The vast majority of people who care about the relationships between religion and science probably see more possibilities and subtleties than you have ever imagined. Scientists tend to be open-minded, and therefore unwilling to join a bunch of fanatics in declaring your war — a war against all ideas not already sanctioned and approved by the scientific and medical establishment.
Most scientists probably would agree that however much we learn, our ignorance remains infinite. So your organized “skeptic” groups will never recruit anything but fanatics who crave certainty.
Some medical treatments that are now considered non-mainstream will probably be accepted some day. They might not be plausible in light of what is already known, but that has been true of every scientific advance and breakthrough.
You are not able to acknowledge limitations and accept uncertainty. Maybe you crave status and power, which you are afraid could be undermined if alternative medicine becomes popular.
I suggest you examine and question your motives. Extreme certainty usually goes along with authoritarianism and intolerance. You can’t even give your opponents a fair chance, can’t imagine for a moment that some of them might be sane and rational.
I think the single feature that makes the war analogy most appropriate is that this is a struggle between different ideological groups for control of resources.
It really doesn’t matter what you call it – but to that extent the analogy is apt. It is not all that the skeptical movement is about – it is a feature, however, and the feature I will focus on in this series.
For those who struggle with the war analogy, think of it as a battle for garden earth between veggies and weeds.
As for me, this is WAR, and I’ve already dug several strategically placed foxholes between my house and the river and have stashed weapons in caches within reasonable reach. Bring it on, Woovles – THIS Skepton Warrior is ready!
All kidding aside, there can be no doubt there exists a monumental contest and that the stakes are incredibly high. The war analogy helps to identify the level of seriousness.
Not sure I agree it’s an ideological struggle or war – unless being illogical, unreasonable, and so often flat-out wrong is an ideology. Then again, being ideologically driven to the wrong conclusions is essentially the same.
pec – it is astounding how completely wrong you can be. You don’t appear to even read this blog, do you. You just scan for snippets you can snipe at.
You think skeptics are “fanatics who crave certainty?” And yet, the skeptical literature, including this blog, is all about DOUBT. It’s about the very fact that we can know nothing with certainty. It is about questioning all claims to truth.
But we don’t know nothing either. Science is a reliable method for determining what is likely to be true and what is not.
The hypocrisy of your comment is that you pretend to be criticizing dogma and taking a black and white view of the world – but you are doing exactly that yourself. You are a broken record with a single theme. You assume I crave status and power. (Right. That’s why I’m an underpaid academic.) You assume everyone who defends science is dogmatic and power hungry. You assume that your view will be vindicated in the future. All of your assumptions are self-serving and childish.
You make absolutely no effort to even understand my arguments. You certainly never address them. All you do is recite the same broken record.
But you present an excellent example of one of the strategies of anti-scientists. Like creationists – make outrageous anti-scientific claims. Then, when real scientists bother to point out how outrageously wrong your claims are, call them closed-minded dogmatic fanatics.
A war-type metaphor is not one that will be useful to skeptics.
It has been said that “all is fair in love and war”. In matters of life and death, all is fair, lying, stealing, cheating, killing, torturing. That is the legacy that evolution will dictate, if we let it. Who ever survives writes the history books of how their struggle was correct.
Scientists and skeptics can’t lie because trying to understanding reality is what defines scientists and skeptics. It does not define any other group. As soon as a skeptic or scientist starts lying, they cease to be a scientist or a skeptic. All other groups engaged in love and war are about acquisition of resources, of females, of land, of food, of living space, of mates, of things needed to survive and reproduce.
An understanding of reality is not necessary to survive and reproduce. Every animal other than humans survives and reproduces without the kind of scientific understanding that humans have developed. For 99.9% of human existence there was no scientific understanding of reality. Probably most of the human race even today goes about surviving and reproducing with no great understanding of science.
What is necessary for scientists and skeptics to eventually prevail is for them to configure the world such that an accurate understanding of reality is necessary for survival and reproduction.
># daedalus2uon 01 Dec 2008 at 10:08 pm
>A war-type metaphor is not one that will be useful to
>skeptics.
That is bloody nonsense.
The committers even forge patient files, right from the beginning.
I say war and I mean war. It is no “metaphor”. We are faced with dead. Dead are people who are killed.
It does not make a difference if the committer DOES pull the trigger of a gun or if he DOES NOT make neccessary medical treatment.
As for the question of ideology: this is not so easy to differentiate. One part of the committers acts driven by plain greed. One part is insane, driven be “religious” or other nonsensical “belief”. But these parts cannot be handled as easy to describe groups because there is a vast range of persons who are both. One interesting aspect is the switch from a person driven by belief to a committer driven by greed.
In the MLM (multi-level marketing, network marketing, or other pseudo names of the “trade”) scene we find many persons who believe in homöopathy or other junk, and who sell that or sell pills (of what contents ever). Many of them really do believe the lies of the MLM scene. But they become dealers, dealing with snake-oil, mantras, reiki, and the whole bandwith of eso stuff up to universe 2.0, where they sell you the whole universe, but in “energized” state.
In the MLM scene you find ALL types of idiocy, and they have no problems at all to integrate even the murderous Hamer stuff “German New Medicine”.
Some weeks ago, in Northrhine-Westfalia, Germany, we found a meta network. It is the first I saw. It is not a simple network of all the little guys at the bottom. No, it is a network of the motors of OTHER networks. It is a network to combine all the top figures of those other networks. The name is “Netzwerk Ganzheitlichkeit”. We have material about it:
http://www.transgallaxys.com/~kanzlerzwo/showtopic.php?threadid=4335
There, we find persons who (at the same time!) support Hamer stuff, have an expensive mailbox (“virtual office”) for the “Ltd.” in Great Britain, live in the Netherlands, sell their stuff to Germany, and deposit their money in Switzerland in other network parts and companies.
It is a criminal scene with high criminal energy. But, and this is the complication, they are not solely driven by greed. They even risk their lives for their insane belief.
If they were plain ordinary criminals, like thieves, pick-pockets or burglars, one could talk with them. But with these idiots one cannot talk. They are as insane as a stoned junkie. And they range from simple housewives with no education up to guys with academic degrees and high-ranking jobs.
The enemy is behind closed curtains, and he is right in front of us, on the TV screen. Yes, true, I saw one in TV. He is a leader of the meta-medicine pack in Germany. And some intellectual desaster, called TV-moderator, high-paid and low-minded, invited him. As a medical expert…
A proponent of the Hamer scene in German TV as a medical expert, yes, that is what we have. And that is only one of the many, many scenes of the war.
At this point I have to make a statement:
I thank Guy Gendron and his colleagues at Radio Canada for their reports about the murderous fraud “Biologie Totale” and the Hamer scene, which were broadcasted on october, 2nd, and october 9th., just some weeks ago.
http://www.radio-canada.ca/emissions/enquete/2008-2009/index.shtml
http://ms.radio-canada.ca/2008/medianet/CBFT/Enquete200810022000.wmv
http://ms.radio-canada.ca/2008/medianet/CBFT/Enquete200810022013.wmv
http://ms.radio-canada.ca/2008/medianet/CBFT/Enquete200810022027.wmv
http://ms.radio-canada.ca/2008/medianet/CBFT/Enquete200810022042.wmv
http://ms.radio-canada.ca/2008/medianet/CBFT/Enquete200810022058.wmv
I hope the videos still are there and will be there for a long time to warn people.
Uopps! my post has vanished… Steven, help…
Don’t take the war metaphor too far. You will see what I mean in future posts. Again – this is not all we do, but it’s one important aspect. Don’t apply it to the wrong things. Think of the efforts of creationists to hamper the teaching of evolution, to redefine science, and to push religious beliefs into the science classrooms. They have an ideological anti-scientific agenda. And we are resisting that agenda.
We have mutually exclusive goals based upon differing world views. Sure – we should use education and reason to make our case to the public and to change attitudes. But in the meantime their agenda needs to be vigorously opposed.
There are those who want to eliminate the standard of care in medicine. Same thing.
There are those who want to destroy the vaccine program.
You get the idea.
To clarify what i meant. I surely think we need to be fare and balanced when evaluating evidence for a phenomenon. But many claims of pseudoscience have been so thoroughly debunked that treating them fairly today makes no sense.
Steven, I’ve read your blog posts for a while, and you have illustrated me about a lot of different arguments. But I have to say that your response to pac is not as good as I would like to see in a high quality blog like this.
Argument about this last statement
1- Tone of reply: While I understand that fighting day and night for the improvement of human understanding of reality may be frustrating, when addressing somebody that clearly has an opposed point of view, even when (if) based in erroneous arguments, the easiest way to turn their comprehension off is to be overtly aggressive. Pac will read your post and instead of trying to understand your arguments, they will only scan and read “absolutely wrong”, “hypocritical”, “completely wrong”. This may take predominance in their perception of your post and simply trigger a emotional response. Somebody that is not used to follow skeptic argumentation may have a tendency to answer emotionally, and when that happens, you will have lost your opportunity of convincing that person. You may actually have cemented that person in their perception that you are intolerant of other people ideas (while is easy to see by your blog history that you are not, this does NOT matter when somebody is just picking the arguments they want instead of seeing the whole picture)
2- Assumptions: You write about Pac not addressing your arguments and being a broken record. Sadly here you are also making assumptions. Pac may be “ignoring” your arguments simply because he is not able to understand them, or because due to his position, he doesn’t want to weaken his argument. But remember, here YOU are the person that is argumenting for the correctness of your arguments, so Pac does NOT have to be complete in his/her arguments, as his/her point is only to point faults in YOUR reasoning, not postulating his/her own philosophy. Is it an unfair way of discussing argument? Of course it is, as it requires always a superior effort of the idea’s defendant compared to the attacking person. But I am sure that you have seen this pattern happen before (Just as ID persons like to argument a little point in a cladistic paper that has very little relevance, but ignore completely the conclusions as they are against what they think.)
I do not have your eloquence or knowledge base, but I am sure that you can answer Pac’s argument in a more organized fashion, that does not give him/her the easy escape route of saying “you see, I told you, he is calling me names. Therefore he is intolerant. Therefore he proves my point that skeptics are big meanies. Therefore proving my point that skepticism is bogus because we all know that meanies can’t be right. Therefore proving that my position is right”. Oh, you know he/she may easily use this argument, and then somebody that only read these posts (or excerpts of it carefully edited and posted in somebody’s else blogs) will take their position.
As you always mention that bogus science always critizices but never offer new ideas, let me try to take a stab at Pac points.
Pac says
“Yes, it’s all so simple. There are those who agree with you — sensible, educated, intelligent, wise. And then there are the others — stubbornly stupid, ignorant, insane.
Have you ever considered that all extremists divide the world up in a similar way? Religious fanatics see themselves as good and wise, and they see you and your atheist friends as depraved and deluded.
Fanatics love to over-simplify, and over-simplification results in distortion and confusion.”
In this argument I can find these defects
1- Overextension of concept: Steven never said that science opponents have to be stupid or ignorant or insane. You are saying that, then railing against it. If you have a concept (science) and you have people against it, well, they clearly are antiscience. That you can have people criticizing scientific arguments, yes you can. They are called scientist. Science does NOT exclude discussion, nor is a monolithic group of facts/knowledge (far from it). Criticizing science using rational arguments does NOT make you anti scientist. Criticizing science using arguments not based in logic or in evidence makes you an anti scientist (by definition). So with this base definition you can divide people in those two groups.
2- Comparison of groups that have no logical relevance: It is true that fanatics will have a dichotomous perception of certain aspects of reality(by definition, they have to do that to be fanatics). But it’s a logical error to equate this to the fact that everybody that has a dichotomous perception HAS to be a fanatic (what with socrates being a greek, this dog is greek, therefore socrates is a dog!). From a non logic standpoind (the reasoning discipline, not the usual language meaning), I can also say that all science is trying to do is dichotomizing arguments in two groups, false or temporarily know as true. Science will never be able to say something is true, that is correct, but it can, and that is ITS MAIN FUNCTION, to assess something as FALSE.
Pac says:
“The vast majority of people who care about the relationships between religion and science probably see more possibilities and subtleties than you have ever imagined. Scientists tend to be open-minded, and therefore unwilling to join a bunch of fanatics in declaring your war — a war against all ideas not already sanctioned and approved by the scientific and medical establishment.
Most scientists probably would agree that however much we learn, our ignorance remains infinite. So your organized “skeptic” groups will never recruit anything but fanatics who crave certainty.”
In this argument I can find the following defects
1- Over generalization: This is an aspect that Steven actually addressed in his post. You are assuming that Steven has not though about relationships between science and religion. You can’t really assess this, unless you can read his mind. Also his post has nothing to do with religion (yes, i went back and re read it), so you are establishing a straw man to fight against it.
2- Misstatement of concept: You mention that Steven and skeptics are “against all ideas not sanctioned and approved by the…establishment”. I went and I reread again the post, and I’ve been reading Steven posts for a while, and I have not found this in any place. Skeptics are not against any specific idea in general. They are against ideas/concepts that have been tested by scientific criteria/logical criteria and found to be FALSE, but are still touted by their proponents as TRUE. Again, science can’t say that something is definitively true, but it can certainly say something is false. Those are the ideas that skeptics are against. And in the grand scheme of ideas, those are actually very few.
3- Cascade of concept falsification: You continue using the fanatic epithet to classify people that would associate in skeptic associations. By definition skeptics are barred from being fanatics, as they can’t hold a definition of reality that is proven false at any time. For example, if at any time (statistically unlikely, but let’s assume it for sake of the argument) there is a well made trial that proves that homeopathic medicine works, and this is verified (as all other scientific findings are), skeptics would have to remove this topic from their skepticism’s targets. So the fact that they have a mechanism where they HAVE to change position if something changes in the evidence, makes them NON-fanatics, because as you(PAC) defined very nicely before, fanatics CAN’T change positions or see “the other side”
Pac says:
“Some medical treatments that are now considered non-mainstream will probably be accepted some day. They might not be plausible in light of what is already known, but that has been true of every scientific advance and breakthrough.
You are not able to acknowledge limitations and accept uncertainty. Maybe you crave status and power, which you are afraid could be undermined if alternative medicine becomes popular.”
In this argument I can find the following defects:
1- Misstatement of concept: There is nowhere in any of the posts that I have read in this blog an argument that appropriate research of new therapies is bad or not accepted, actually the opposite has been the case. The treatments that skeptics are AGAINST are the ones that have undergone scientific review, and found to be NOT useful or harmful. That has nothing to do with the treatment being alternative medicine or not. Sadly the CURRENT state of research of alternative medicine has shown much of their statements to be false. It does NOT means that if a well made randomized controlled trial shows that any CAM is useful, it will be rejected only because it’s CAM. Actually if it happens(and it’s appropriately verified) that treatment will be able to go to the general medical cannon. Curare was a poison used by some tribes to fish/celebratory rites. Then it was found that it could be used as a neuromuscular blocker. Its utility (or more precisely the utility of its derivated products) was proven multiple times, and this “tribal” therapy was accepted as an appropriate medical tool.
2- Treating Steven as a non learning entity: Jokingly, but appropriately I address this point. Steven is an MD, and from personal experience, I can tell you that physicians have a very high capacity for learning. Do you really think that if alternative medicine is proven effective Steven wouldn’t be able to study it and use it himself? I don’t know him personally but I am pretty sure that he could learn to use any of the current alternative medicine practices, were any of them to be proven useful.
Pac says:
“I suggest you examine and question your motives. Extreme certainty usually goes along with authoritarianism and intolerance. You can’t even give your opponents a fair chance, can’t imagine for a moment that some of them might be sane and rational.”
1- Misstatement of intention: You are mentioning that Steven has extreme certainty. I reread the post again and I didn’t red about this. The only certainty that i could see from Steven post is that he is against concept that science has proven WRONG. Again, he can’t(and isn’t) against concepts that have not being studied. For example if tomorrow I say that using pine leaves extract will cure neurofibromatosis-related pain, he may say that he doubts it’s true, but he can’t be against it unless I do a trial. If the trial proves that this is false, then he CERTAINLY will be against it. You(Pac) establish again a straw man (skeptic’s fanaticism) to fight against, where there is none. Skeptics have no reason that people are irrational, unless they go against rational concepts(like concepts proven FALSE by science or logic). Then by definition Pac…they are irrational.
Sorry for the extensive post, but I had to address these two aspects, both Steven’s and Pac’s posts.
I understand Steven that you have no time to answer in-extenso to everybody that posts in your blog when they express misleading/logically fallacious arguments, but you took the time to answer to Pac. Your answer lacks your usual clarity and level headiness. Sadly those are the times when your opponents will find (non-appropriate, but still) arguments against your stand for science and skepticism.
One answer to that…crowdsource!. You will always find one of us lurking around and happy to address the argument postulated.
Pac, thanks for posting. We may not agree with you, but we are happy to discuss. Skeptics are as human as any others. We are passionate, because we are afraid that humankind could go into a very dark night if we don’t fight. Steven is passionate, because he cares. That is all there is to it.
Shouldn’t ‘disinterested’ be ‘uninterested’? Disinterested being synonymous with impartial.
superdave, treating debunked claims as if they make no sense is treating them fairly. To treat them “fairly” is to require the same standards of evidence for them as we do for everything else. To treat them otherwise is to treat them unfairly.
There is a good reason to revisit pseudo-nonsense fully debunked long ago, and that is because it tends to cycle back, especially since the advent of the internet. Case in point: That old “the moon landing was faked!” thing has risen every ten years or so due to younger folks reading science-y sounding accounts that simply ignore the multitudes of debunking treatments also available on the internet.
Given this, I’m starting to like my analogy of public opinion regarding science being a sort of garden requiring periodic weeding.
yannis – you have to understand the history with pec. This was not an isolated comment. She is a hopeless troll, and the only person I have ever (temporarily) had to ban from my comments for unacceptable behavior.
Pec would have you writing volumes of comments like the one you just did, but to no avail. That is what trolls do.
I really enjoy posts like this. Have you considered writing/compiling a skeptic’s manifesto?
Why do people all the time think that it is POSSIBLE to CONVINCE a person?
That idea simple does not work. It cannot work because people are NOT led by logic or facts, they are following patterns. Patterns of actio/reactio, of rituals, or the like.
IF a person has a “preformatted” mind to talk and to logically analyze matters, THEN you can talk with this person. But if a person is (as Steven wrote) a “broken record with a single theme”, this person will do not nothing but go in endless circles. Such a person one CANNOT convince. I wrote about that some months ago: We are not discussing with esoterics, we are showing them to public.
This is a public event and our real partner is the audience.
We act in front of an audience. This is to a great extent like Judy and Punch. If a crocodile shows up: Do not discuss, do the woodwork!
SN: [You think skeptics are “fanatics who crave certainty?” And yet, the skeptical literature, including this blog, is all about DOUBT. It’s about the very fact that we can know nothing with certainty. It is about questioning all claims to truth.]
PEC: The “skeptical” literature is all about doubting alternative science. You attack alternative (non-mainstream, non-materialist) science frequently, and only occasionally question claims from mainstream, materialist science.
SN: [But we don’t know nothing either. Science is a reliable method for determining what is likely to be true and what is not.]
PEC: I have stated many many times, at this blog, that I believe in, and use, the scientific method. One of your political tactics is to pretend that non-mainstream science does not use the scientific method.
SN: [The hypocrisy of your comment is that you pretend to be criticizing dogma and taking a black and white view of the world - but you are doing exactly that yourself. You are a broken record with a single theme.]
PEC: My single theme at this blog is that non-materialist, alternative, science, does not always deserve to be dismissed and ridiculed. Ideas that seem utterly implausible to you, because of your ideological perspective, may actually be promising.
SN: [You assume I crave status and power. (Right. That’s why I’m an underpaid academic.)
PEC: There is status in belonging to a respected authoritative group of experts. Alternative science could be perceived as a threat to that status. It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with money.
SN: [You assume everyone who defends science is dogmatic and power hungry.]
PEC: Not at all. I defend science.
SN: [You assume that your view will be vindicated in the future.]
PEC: I am not defended a particular “view” or claiming it will be vindicated. I assume that philosophical materialism will be officially discredited by the scientific method.
SN: [All of your assumptions are self-serving and childish.]
PEC: If saying that kind of thing makes you feel superior, go right ahead. It has no logical or scientific content.
pec – what you do not do is actually address the logic or evidence of my arguments. Rather, you make a series of ad-hominem attacks – assuming I crave power, assuming I am dismissive, or ideological.
You make no attempt to understand my position, to find common ground, or even to pose a serious argument. You simply point fingers and call names – “materialist ideologue, materialist ideologue” – broken record.
I make substantive arguments to defend my position – verifiable referenced data and valid logic. If you could counter that, you would. But you don’t.
You assume I defend a position – when I have explained in great detail that I only defend a method, wherever it leads.
You assume I have ulterior motives – without any evidence.
You assume your beliefs will be vindicated in the future (you contradicted yourself on this point in your last comment.)
I am happy to have you continue to contribute to these comments. I just ask that you show the common courtesy of actually trying to read and understand my arguments and address them, not just call names and make assumptions.
“Help! I’m being oppressed by the materialist ideologue! I’m being oppressed! Help!”
[...] Vote Skeptical Battlegrounds: Part I – Background [...]
I must admit that psedoscience and the likes needs confronting and debunking. But it would be nice for the skeptical community to get behind something entirely positive.
In the UK you can now get an academic qualification in critical thinking. I think it would be good if this educational approach could be promoted further and spread around the world.